Goodness, what a night. From the overtime in Seattle and wipeout in Pullman all the way through the Bay Area thrillers — three games, all in doubt with a few minutes left — to a near-epic collapse in Long Beach, we haven’t seen a night like that all season, best I can tell.

I was at Gonzaga-Santa Clara (along with Ronny Turiaf, Anthony Randolph, Boris Diaw and Bill Duffy), covering it for the Merc … did my best to monitor other games over the internet … and witnessed a first in my too-many-years as a college basketball writer:

Items being thrown from the crowd not once but twice. In a four-minute stretch. In the second half. Of a close, close game.

(It was also a first for SCU Coach Kerry Keating, who was justifiably enraged by the whole situation. There were a few times I thought Keating was gonna get T’ed-up, but he never went too far.)

Anyhow, I got home a little before midnight, watched the end of the Cal game on tape — I could only tape one 7:30 game because of DVR issues and picked Cal-UCLA over Stanford-USC Cal-USC over Stanford-UCLA — and then got busy reading, researching and writing this special regional edition of action/reaction.

Oh, and I had intended to get this posted in the wee hours, but the server went down somewhere around 1:45 and I grabbed the snooze time — thank you, technical problems!

Action I: Cal nearly collapses (double-digit lead late) but hangs on to beat USC in overtime and improve to 10-5 in Pac-10 play.Action II: When it ends, play-by-play man Greg Papa proclaims: “And the Bears are going to the NCAA tournament!”Reaction I: I’m not quite as certain as Papa. If the Bears beat UCLA or win one in the desert next week, they’re a lock. But what if they lose their last three and finish tied for fifth (with USC), then lose in the quarters of the Pac-10s? And what if there are upsets in conference tournaments (the X factor in all this) that squeeze the number of available at-large bids? In that situation, I think the Bears would have a good chance because of their SOS and road/neutral wins, but a certainty … ? Seems to me that there’s more work ahead to enter lock status.Reaction II: Doesn’t matter that Cal won last night. It wants no part of USC in the Pac-10s: That’s a bad matchup for the Bears.Reaction III: The Bears needed a big game from someone other than Jerome Randle and got it from Patrick Christopher (29 points). I can’t help but think we’re seeing a shifting dynamic — a changing of the guard among the guards, so to speak. For three months, Randle has been Cal’s best and most important player, its floor leader and top scorer. But he is 5-foot-8 and his production is slowing: Either teams have figured out how to defend him, or he’s wearing down, or both. So I wonder if we’re now seeing Christopher grow into his talent and emerge as the Bears’ go-to scorer — the guy who makes the big plays at the end of the shot clock, who defenses are designed to stop. Unlike Randle, the 6-5 Christopher has the size to create his own shot. A big wing with ballhandling skills, not a diminutive point guard, is the kind of player you want as the first option in March. If the Bears are going to succeed in the Pac-10s and the NCAAs, then Christopher, not Randle, has to carry them.

Action I: Stanford jumps to a 24-10 lead on UCLA but loses 76-71.Action II: The Bruins stay a game behind Washington in the loss column.Reaction I: UCLA wing Josh Shipp sure likes Maples Pavilion: 7-13/21 pts last year and 9-12/24 pts this year.Reaction II: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the Bruins beat Cal and thump the Oregons, and if Washington loses one more (letdown after ASU?), allowing UCLA to finish tied for first and keep its conference title string alive.Reaction III: I saw in Darren Sabedra’s story that in the final minute that “Rather than foul, Stanford tried to get a stop defensively”. Curious that a team that can’t defend would try to get a stop in that situation. But not having seen it, it’s tough to weigh in definitively either way.Reaction IV: On the bright side for Stanford: USC might be just about done, so the Cardinal has a decent chance to win Saturday, on Senior Day, and avoid a season-ending eight game losing streak … because you know it’s gonna get swept in the desert.Reaction V: It’s also possible that Stanford will finish four games behind Oregon State, which would be a stunning turn given the state of both programs a year ago.

Action I: Gonzaga takes control late, overpowers Santa Clara 81-73.Action II: SCU falls into fourth-place tie with San Diego.Reaction I: My reading of the WCC standings and tiebreaker rules indicate that if the Broncos beat Portland on Saturday, they’d be seeded No. 4 in the WCC tournament, regardless of what USD does. And with the No. 4 seed comes a bye into the quarters.Reaction II: When it is OK to rat on your fellow students? When one of them cost your team two points in the final minutes vs. Gonzaga by throwing items on the court (after Keating had asked the crowd to stop throwing objects). That student should be banned from Saturday’s game.Reaction III: I’m not sold on the Zags. They have a lot of talented parts, but their defense can be suspect and, from an outsider’s outsider point of view, it just seems like they have too many “stars,” too many players with an eye on the NBA Draft, and not enough Steven Grays.

Action: St. Mary’s takes care of business at Pepperdine.Reaction I: The Gaels will be rooting for archrival Santa Clara on Saturday: If SMC and SCU both win, the Gaels will finish second and grab a bye into the WCC semis … Of course, that would mean fewer games for Patty Mills (if he, in fact, is ready to return from the broken hand), and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.Reaction II: Randy Bennett for WCC Coach of the Year? Not surprisingly, he’s done a nice job stabilizing the Gaels after that rough post-Mills stretch. But if Portland beats SCU tomorrow and finishes second/tied for second, then Eric Reveno should be COY in a landslide.

Action: San Jose State beats Idaho to hold its place in the WAC standings.Reaction I: One of the biggest wins for the Spartans for Coach George Nessman.Reaction II: How did SJSU beat a decent WAC team with Adrian Oliver going 3-12 from the field? Point guard Justin Graham was superb, with 17 points and six assists. Where has that been all season? I know, I know: The broken wrist.Reaction III: A victory over Hawaii on Senior Day would assure the Spartans of avoiding the WAC play-in game. My feeling is that they can beat anyone in the league, save Utah State, so avoiding USU’s bracket is critical.

Action I: Arizona gets beat by 16 in Pullman.Reaction 1: Wow.Reaction II: Have the heartless Cats returned after a multi-week slumber? That’s a bad loss for a team on the NCAA bubble, especially for a team on the NCAA bubble that’s 2-8 in road games. If the Cats lose in Seattle, they’ll need to sweep the Bay Area schools in Tucson and probably win one in the Pac-10s in order to feel safe/semi-safe on Selection Sunday.Reaction III: Tony Bennett has little chance to win Pac-10 COY, but he’s doing a terrific job (and now has back-to-back wins over UCLA and Arizona).

Action: Washington gets a big game from Jon Brockman, contains James harden, beats ASU in overtime and takes a 1.5-game lead in the Pac-10 race.Reaction I: Clutch performance from the Huskies, for sure, but they can’t afford the slightest letdown with Arizona coming to Seattle. Stylistically, the Cats might be as tough a matchup for UW as any team in the conference.Reaction II: Awards talk: There’s only one man who can keep Lorenzo Romar from winning COY, and he resides in Corvallis. Isaiah Thomas is a lock for FOY, and Brockman, Thomas and Justin Dentmon are all-conference candidates. As for POY, it seems like that’s Harden’s domain, but let’s be honest: the field is as weak as it’s been in yearsReaction III: The weak POY field … That sounds like a future Hotline post.

Action: Long Beach State nearly blows an 11-point lead with less than two minutes left but holds on to beat Irvine 75-74.Reaction: I mention this only because it’s indicative of the wild night in the west. By my count, 10 of the 14 games played in the Big West/Pac-10/WAC/WCC last night were tight into the final minutes. Let’s hope Saturday brings close to as much chaos.

I think Mike Montgomery plans to send a fruit basket to Gibson today, thanking him for his ineptitude at the charity stripe. But give the Bears credit for bouncing back from the lethargy at the end of regulation to win in OT. I agree; Cal is not a lock right now with the potential to lose their last 4 games. But beat the Bruins tomorrow to remove the doubt.

PapaBear

Are the Pac-10 awards voted on prior to season’s end, like it was done in football? If so, just like football the hoops awards may not go to the most deserving!

Why is everyone on the Craig Robinson bandwagon? Oregon State was a pre-season 10th pick. Right now, the Beavers are in 7th place with a .500 record and 3 road games plus the Pac-10 tourny to go. They are not a lock for any tournaments. Not the NCAA, not the NIT, not the CBI, and not even the CollegeInsider.com tourny. That’s 4 post season tournaments, involving 129 teams. Not qualifying for any of them should disqualify a guy for Pac-10 COY Honors.

As for Washington, they were a pre-season pick 5th pick, ie: an NCAA bubble team. By making the Big Dance, they aren’t achieving anything that wasn’t completely unexpected. Winning the Pac-10 season title does not necessarily equate to the best coaching job. So I disagree that the award is Lorenzo Romar’s (if not Robinson’s).

Let’s not forget that Cal was a pre-season 8th pick……………& thus a team potentially not invited to any post-season tournament. Instead, this 8th pick is battling for an NCAA bid and is tied for 2nd with an outside chance to win the conference crown. Going from 8th to 2nd is a greater achievement than going from 10th to 7th or from 5th to 1st. Coach Montgomery has done the best job of coaching up his players, and achieving much more this year than anyone (fans, alums, media pundits) expected. That’s COY Material!

Bottom Line: Let’s see how the final games play out, before declaring the winner. Hopefully Pac-10 bylaws alllow such!

Jacob Wang

Maybe SCU should be the ones that sells its student seats to donors, rather than Stanford. How far away from the court were the students during Cheryl Levick’s time at SCU?

mk92

Yes, Pac-10 awards are voted on before the Pac-10 tourney.

As for your homer post in favor of Monty, let’s not forget that OSU won 0 games last year in conference and is going to win 7 or 8 this year (a 7-8 game improvement). Meanwhile, UW won 7 games last year and is going to win 13 or 14 this year (a 6-7 game improvement). Cal won 6 games last year and will likely win 10 or 11 this year (a 4-5 game improvement).

While Monty has done a nice job, unless Cal finishes tied for 1st, the arguments for Robinson and Romar are much stronger (also, comparing actual place in standings with predicted place is flawed on so many levels; it’s much better to look at WINS, and specifically improvement in actual wins, not place)

drew

Patrick Christopher is great … don’t get me wrong … but he isn’t quite a “big wing” as you said Wilner and at times he struggled to finish at the basket against USC because of that.

He’s listed at 6-5, but I think he’s closer to 6-3, which I suppose is good enough at the college level. DeMar DeRozan (at 6-6) clearly had a few inches on him.

But that’s a minor correction. It doesn’t take anything away of course from the clinic he put on against the Trojans. Go Bears.

PapaBear

mk92 – I couldn’t disagree more. Comparing last year’s wins vs this year’s wins involves so many variables beyond coaching. It is much more reasonable to look at pre-season projection vs actual finish.

PK

Jon, you mention the WCC tiebreaker rules. I can’t seem to find any information on what exactly the tiebreaker rules are. Any idea where I can find them?

milo

Indeed, have to wait until conference play concludes.

If Robinson gets to .500 in Pac-10 play, I think he has a chance for COY. Currently at 7-8, OSU needs to beat UO and split the LA trip to get to .500, possible but LA will be tough.

If UW runs away with the title, 2 game lead. I think Romar has the best shot. UW has UA and WSU left. A project 5th to a run away first is significant. 14-4 isn’t chopped liver. Depends on how everyone finishes.

From my perspective, while I think Monty is great and has brought Cal back, Robinson and/or Romar’s finish might be stronger. OTOH, if Monty gets Cal to finish second, he has a chance depending on others but still tough. Probably needs a minor miracle for 2nd and Cal looks a bit beat up currently.

I guess we’ll know soon enough.

bigbullship

If you saw OSU play last year you can understand why robinson is a legit COY canidate- It is a totally dffrent team this year.

Monty has been Monty at Cal- and Cal is much better for it- but he will get his COY’s again when his teams win the championship and go undefeated in confrence >< in the next couple of years.

Romar is a great recruiter-but an average coach imo- his team is benefiting from a down year in the Pac, finally getting a point guard, and simply have 2 solid Sr’s – I actually think his teams have underachieved the past few years soo this team should earn him no great shakes imo.

I think USC is dead unless they beat Furd- or win the Pac10 tourney- same as WSU

Vintage Cal

Stanford was picked ninth preseason and will finish ninth. So no coach of year for Dawkins but does he really deserve the heat he’s getting. By predicted order of finish the Cardinal has not underachieved. Same can’t be said for UCLA, USC, and Oregon.

mk92

The problem with using projections is, among other things, that it’s based on the media poll. I guess I could see using “projected wins,” but not projected place in the standings. Going into this year, Stanford was projected 9th and Cal was projected 8th, but both were part of that 6-9 tier.

OSU, on the other hand, was almost universally projected to finish 10th with maybe a win or two (literally all but 2 people predicted OSU last)…that’s why Robinson’s job is so impressive.

Bob S

“That student should be banned from Saturday’s game.”

Pretty sure that won’t be needed as the student section will be 1/10th of what it was last night. Maybe the punishment should be that the student GOES TO THE PORTLAND game.

D W

Three boneheaded moments equal another a perfect Gonzaga WCC:
– Patrick Mills using his SHOOTING HAND to break a fall. DUMB for SMC.
– Sheer idiocy by two SCU students ruin it for the rest of Leavey. These ultra Maroons could use a Brandi yell or several plus some more scolding from Keating and Coonan, even from Jerry.
– Various suspensions and injuries means it will take a miracle for San Diego to light up the Slim Gym.
Also, UW won’t let up. They’ll pay back UA and sweep WSU.
And Cal may see some typical UCLA, but they’ll end 14 years of misery and sweep Arizona if the Wildcats are really the Mildcats.

Dubya

Looks like Taj Gibson has taken a page from the Trevor Wilson book of free-throw shooting 😛

I hope he keeps it up for one more game, but Gibson has more mental toughness in his pinky than Wilson ever did. I expect Gibson to come out and attack Fields and Hill, and it should be a good game in Maples today. For the sake of Goods, Johnson, Hill, and Brown, I hope they can go out at home on a high note after what has to be a disappointing season.